Objulen

The game was good, though it suffered from a rushed release. Personally, if you want someone to blame, then pick Lucas Arts; they were the ones who told Obsidian to rush it out the door. Personally, the present incarnation of LA, though improving, is still a disappointment; I can remember back when they were making great games like The Dig, TIE Fighter, and After Life. As for Obsidian, at least they left the missing content on the CDs, so it could be modded back in.

Ah, the old "why does it matter if I fry him with lightning when I can slash to him to ribbons with my light saber?" question. Don't worry, it doesn't make much sense to me either; dead, after all, is dead, especially when you have supposidly neutral powers that actually let you throw your light saber into things.

Nothing. Thrawn's chances were just as set in stone, ultimately, as Revan's.

It was mentioned in an article a while ago that KotOR was supposed to be cannon. If that is still the case, and how it pans out if it is, I don't know.

That game would be interesting. However, it wouldn't really serve as a prequal for KotOR, which would really have to be set during the Mandalorian War. There are two issues with this: 1) KotOR is about Jedi, since they were the knights of the old republic 2) You can be a Jedi and not be some bigwig in the annals of history. There are many forgotten masters, knights, and padwans. The point of the prequal would be to see and participate in parts of Revan's fall to the Dark Side, and eventually have the choice to join her/his or probably die. That is much more signifcant for a Jedi, since Revan targeted them specifically for coversion or assassination. It would be particularly interesting if Atton was the one who was "convincing" the character if he/she decided to stay with the Light.

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I'd stick with the d20 systems, but refine the implementation so it's not so one sided. It doesn't bother me, since RPGs, IMO, are about the story, but the Jedi in KotOR and TSL are so powerful that I sometimes wonder if I'm playing Exalted. As for the visuals, all that requires are more animations and better randimization so combat doesn't seem so repetative. Any RPG that uses table-top mechanics to calculate results is going to essentially be a series of dice rolls, but it could be made so it doesn't seem so obvious. Then again, this doens't bother me much either. Morrowind's combat was basically just like KotOR's, in that it was "dice" based, except that you could kite. Oblivion's combat is supposed to be true FPS style, with various skills modifying your effectiveness with different attacks while having no bearing on accuracy.

And I did not see anything about Obisidian restoring the cut content, in part or en toto. Since there was an official post saying that it might be done (though that post was later deleted), I was wondering what happened with that.

I have read through a few of them, but I haven't been able to read every single one. My life is not on these forums. There was a thread that was deleted by Obsidian stating that they might be adding content back in. I was wondering how that was going. It's truly a pity that LA has denied Obisidan permission to add back the cut content. Then again, this only reinforces the prevelent opinion that LA is a company full of ass hats.

It didn't add back any cut content. Pity. However, given that it's only a 1.0b revision, the implication is that there may be another patch to push it to 1.1. This is pure speculation on my part, of course, but it would be nice to hear from Obisidian.

Malak was so one-dimensional that I half expected him to be a character in Paper Mario.

The Force, in the standard movie-based view, is really only the LS. The Dark Side is supposed to be a perersion of sorts, something unnatural. LS = good, DS = evil. However, the books, as I understand it, delve more deeply. After all, the Force is generated by life, and life is both joy and pain. Life is beautiful, but it is also brutual, and violent, and capable of inflicting suffering and pain simply to survive. This presents the Force in a much different manner. The DS isn't automatically evil...even though it is evil. This little paradox of human ethics vs. the mechanics that keep everything running smoothly (for the point was made that without conflict and struggle, we don't grow stronger, and without strength, we can't defend ourselves and die). In this sort of view, then it could be said that both the LS and the DS are evil in their own ways, dangerous extremes that are anathema to life. The proper path would be a more balanced one that takes a measure of high minded ideals and grounds them with a dose of pragmatism evidenced by the DS. It could also be the case, in this latter view the rise and fall of the LS and DS could simply be a cycle by which the galaxy maintains itself. The order of the LS keeps everything running smoothly, but inevitably falls to complacency and stagnates, and then the DS comes along and raises holy hell, galvanizing life in the universe once again so it doesn't lose its strength and fail.

I disagree. TSL really wasn't about epic. It was a shadowy tale of subtle war and intruige, which doesn't fit with epic conflicts. Nihils died first because he was a symbol more than anything else -- he embodied everything you were fighting. Sion represented the evil of the Force, a Sith Lord kept alive in constant pain by its power, enslaved to it, unable to exist without it. And Traya was the spider spinning the entire web, connecting the dots in the rushed ending. Despite this, dialog was the best option for the end, given the focus of the game was the Force and the Jedi who use it. There was no galactic threat that everyone was aware of, after all, and it didn't arise from nothing, rather following the climax of KotOR I. The real flaws at the end was the rushed finale that ignored many, many plot elements. Too rushed, and too many lose ends. If you are DS, you don't even know what happened to your companions, and little would have been lost if everything except the G0-T0/Remote scene was cut from the ending before Sion. The elements of the conclusion that were removed from the final product would have made for a much more satisfying ending.

One of things "we" really need to stop is this idea that your PC is a LIVING LEGEND. Yes, it helped kickstart the franchise but now that the franchise has a good deal of depth, we need PCs that are nobodies and who do not affect the EU storyline. For instance, we should NOT be given the chance to play Nomi Sunrider in a future RPG, IMO. However, I can definitely see playing someone who is apprenticed to Nomi as a padawan. This would allow the PC to be non-human and would not introduce the kind of continuity issues that we have to deal with now with Revan and the Exile. The protagonist's identity needs to be TOTALLY OPEN! And DS and LS paths should lead to much different destinations! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's basically what I was propossing, but in reality, one would be forced into it. Any prequal to KotOR would have to be about Malak and Revan's fall to be really engaging, but one would have to be someone else to keep the moral options open. Then you toss in the fact that the PC is more or less a rank and file Jedi that is never mentioned anywhere, and you have an amigious PC who's taking part in great events, even though no one is really going to remember her/him.

It's ammusing how everyone who voted for a specific line so far chose one from Episode I or II.

And what was that Atton said? "Jedi are pacifist, except in time of war."

It would be a good idea if the PC was someone other than Revan. Revan's path is already set -- he/she inevitably falls to the Dark Side. A confidant or top aid working with Revan during the war would be great and, for added drama, you could have the choice at the end to join Revan's new Sith Empire or die for the light side, like most of those who didn't fall did during Revan's house cleaning... EDIT: It should be noted that the main story of such a prequel wouldn't be about the PC as much as KotOR I or II. The PC would be watching Revan and Malak change from the idealstic Jedi who set out to save the Republic to it's would be conquerers.

HK-47 joins you for your meeting with Carth.

Looks great.

However, since KotOR is canon now, Revan exists. Is TSL as well? The ultimate problem here is that the Exile, being a "hole" in the Force, could potentially exist forever as a DSer, given her/his power with the Dark Side, since he/she could potentially sustain life like Nihilus did, but on a smaller scale.

That doens't really count. Revan had the favor of the almighty script writiers on her/his side, while Thrawn didn't. Revan could have been a three legged, one-armed, quadrapalegic monkey with down syndrom and won with that sort of support.

If one were going to translate that fight to Star Wars D20, it would have been Maul that go lucky unless Obi-Wan got a MASSIVE crit to Maul's body points. Both Qui Gon and Maul were low on vitality points, and Maul hit first. When he went up against Obi-Wan, he made a last ditch force use where he ran out of vitality pointes, so when Obi-Wan's attack got through, he didn't have any defense left.

These are good notions, however, they aren't likely to be implemented. Star Wars is very dualistic -- there's the light side and the dark side, and nothing really in between. D&D has set the stereotype even further, since neutrals are generally on the side of good, occasionally on the side of evil, but almost never in their own little enclaves, and even when they are, they are either labeled good or evil. This sort of moral ambiguity simply doesn't have a foot hold in Star Wars; it's a enough of stretch for the setting to even consider that the Dark Side might not be an unnatural horror. Considering that the Light and Dark Side might be used together in harmony goes beyond the pale of Star Wars' hard-line dualism.

I don't know about that. I can not find an origional copy of Blade Runner for the life of me -- locating an origional copy of the classic trilogy would be quite a task if there aren't cheap copies on Ebay.

Darth Frog, while you do have a point that TSL is hideously stacked in favor of the PC's, it's an RPG and, IMO, about the story, so it doesn't really bother me. For example, Coucilor/Sith Lord is cheese, I will admit it, but I chose the combo because that's what I wanted to play, not because I wanted an easy time. That and the satisfaction of frying foes with force lighting.